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Coast Guard tries hand at Arctic oil cleanup

August 10th 2:34 pm | Carey Restino Print this article   Email this article   Create a Shortlink for this article

Several challenges presented themselves when the U.S. Coast Guard conducted a multi-agency test of its oil spill response equipment off the shores of Barrow last week, but none of them had to do with the oil spill cleanup equipment.

The biggest challenge? The absence of a dock on which to stage their response equipment. With the nearest docks capable of supporting the 225-foot Coast Guard cutter hundreds of miles away, the Coast Guard contracted with a tug and barge from Prudhoe Bay instead. Those vessels served as a staging platform with good success, said David Seris with the 17th Coast Guard District Waterways Management Branch.

"That was the big challenge for us," Seris said, "having a stable platform for all that equipment on which to take all of that equipment out of the hold and set it up on deck."

The other big challenge? Ice.

As has been pointed out often last winter during the historic trip of the Renda and the Coast Guard Cutter Healy, the fleet is woefully short of icebreakers. Traveling north for this exercise was the Coast Guard Cutter Sycamore, which can operate in minimal ice, like one might find on the Great Lakes, but it is not equipped to tango with ice thicker than 2 feet.

While the Sycamore was deployed to northern waters, a storm system in the Aleutian Chain moved in that weather forecasters predicted would push ice close to shore near Barrow. Seris said forecasters were continually updating the crews about the movement of that storm as they performed the oil spill clean up testing.

"We got a lot of help form the weather service," he said. "The day the Sycamore arrived, a lead opened up so it could safely make the transit to Barrow."

The Alaska Coast Guard response advisory team, along with the agency's Pacific Strike Team, Research and Development Center, the Navy Supervisor of Salvage and the U.S. Northern Command all participated in the three-day joint exercise. Crews tested oil skimming equipment, a boom and the "Polar Bear" skimmer, which is specially designed to suck oil out of pockets of water trapped by ice. According to a release, "Polar Bear" skimmer had been tested on ice on the Great Lakes, but had never been tested in the Arctic.

Seris said the tests went well, and the experience was an education for many of the team who had not been to the Arctic before.

"It was a chance to figure out how to coordinate logistics," he said. "It was very valuable."

While the Coast Guard has oil spill response equipment on board, it is not typically the first responder in the event of a spill. Generally, the party responsible for the spill takes action themselves or contracts with someone who can clean up any spill.

"It's pretty rare that the Coast Guard steps in," Seris said. "In all likelihood, it would probably be some other entity."

The exception, of course, was the Deepwater Horizon incident in the Gulf, where the Coast Guard, recognizing the magnitude of the situation, deployed its spill response equipment.

"It would have to be an incident of significant magnitude," he said.

The Coast Guard, backed by Alaska's delegates, has made a push this year to increase its Arctic presence, not to mention its fleet of icebreakers, citing increases in vessel traffic, as well as oil development that is to begin this year with Shell Oil's exploration in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas.

Carey Restino can be reached at crestino@reportalaska.com.

 

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